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- Robert Keith was an American character actor who appeared in a number of prominent films and was the father of actor Brian Keith. A native of Indiana, Keith joined a stock company as a teenager and developed skills as a writer and actor. He appeared in dozens of plays around the country and on Broadway.
He came to the attention of Hollywood as a writer after his play "The Tightwad" appeared in New York in 1927. He was contracted to write dialog for pictures and managed to act in several as well. He returned to Broadway as a playwright in 1932 and continued to act on the stage in a number of legendary theatre productions including "Yellow Jack", "The Children's Hour" and "Mr. Roberts" (as Doc).
In the late 1940s he returned to film work full-time and became a familiar and respected performer in films of the period. His son Brian, by his second wife, Helena Shipman, appeared with him in several silent films as a child, long before becoming a star in his own right. Robert Keith died in 1966. - Oliver Johnston was born on 30 April 1888 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Quatermass Experiment (1953), Wideawake (1957) and Kidnapped (1960). He died on 22 December 1966 in Westminster, London, England, UK.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Born in Abilene, KS, in 1888, Harry Beaumont started his show-business career early--he quit school to become an actor in a traveling stock company, and eventually made his way to the New York stage. In 1912 he began working as a film actor for Edison studios--which was headquartered across the river in New Jersey--in everything from two-reel shorts to serials, and also began writing screenplays. He began directing in 1915, stayed with Edison for a year and then went over to Essanay Studios. He soon made the rounds of other studios as a director, and got a reputation as an efficient craftsman who could bring in films on time and within budget, which guaranteed him work. His most productive period was in the 1920s, when he worked in the rarefied atmosphere of MGM--the "Tiffany" of studios--directing such major productions as Main Street (1923) and Beau Brummel (1924), and MGM entrusted him with the careers of such major stars as Joan Crawford and John Barrymore. The studio awarded him the honor of making its first sound musical, The Broadway Melody (1929), which won an Oscar for Best Picture. Unfortunately, that picture was pretty much the pinnacle of his career; he continued directing, mainly at MGM, into the 1940s, but none of his subsequent films rose much above the "B" level. He directed his last film, Alias a Gentleman (1948), in 1948, and died in Santa Monica, CA, in 1966.